in order to be ordained, the monk would come and ask, or somehow indicate to Shakyamuni that he wanted to be a member of the Sangha. And Shakyamuni said, follow me. And that was it. Now we have elaborate ordination ceremonies, which, after Buddha's time, because the teacher is not there anymore. The teacher, when the teacher is present, or the founder is present, there's not so much need for rules, because everyone follows the example of the founder. But when the founder's not there, no longer there, then they need to have, the sangha makes up rules and regulations. And when, as most people know, according to the tradition, when Shakyamuni was on his deathbed, Ananda asked him, well, I know we should follow the major precepts, but what about the minor precepts?

[01:20]

He said, I know, Shakyamuni said, if you follow the precepts, if you follow the Vinaya, you'll be following me. But Ananda said, when he was asked, Ananda said, well, I forgot to ask him about the minor precepts. And then Mahakasyapa said, well, Mahakasyapa's kind of a disciplinarian. He said, well, since we didn't ask him and he didn't say one way or another, we'll just follow them all. So that codified the 350 precepts, 250 for men and 300 for women or something like that. That's called the Vinaya or Vinaya. And there were, for a long time, monks who simply practiced the Vinaya as their main practice. 250 rules, right? But people got tired of that, of being so rule-bound.

[02:27]

And even in China, the Vinaya practice continued, but it also became modified. And when Buddhism came to Japan, it became even more, excuse me, modified. And the Tendai practice, which was one of the early practices of Buddhism in China, developed 16 precepts, and the government accepted that. And, you know, Suzuki Roshi used to talk about the monk who came from India, He came from India to China, but he couldn't stay in China because he couldn't follow all the precepts. Like in China, it snows, and if you're only wearing a robe over your shoulder and stuff like that, you can't stay in a different climate.

[03:36]

Many of the minor precepts had to do with location. and with the environment and so forth. So if you stick to those precepts, you can't move out of your environment. So it doesn't make sense. So in my opinion, the 16 precepts covers all of the precepts in a sense that Categorically, they become guidelines rather than rules. In China, they're the Bodhisattva precepts, 48 minor precepts, they develop 48 minor precepts.

[04:44]

And those minor precepts became more the established minor precepts for Chinese monks. Even though they would mouth the 250 precepts, they actually follow more than 48 precepts. So when you're ordained as a monk, you take the 250 precepts But the ones that you really pay attention to are the 48 minor precepts. And even in Japan, that sometimes happens. But Vinaya, in the Mahayana, the Vinaya became less and less of a practice. And the Bodhisattva practice became more prominent. And in Zen practice in China, the monks were very strict about about following precepts, because they were monastics, mostly.

[05:50]

In Japan, though, we have what we call the And there's Bodhidharma's non-dual precepts and Dogen's non-dual precepts. And the idea is, the understanding is that there's really just one precept, which is be Buddha. Act like Buddha. you know, find your Buddha nature and act out of that. And then there are ways to do that. So the 16 precepts are Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Those are called precepts, the first three. Buddha is the fountainhead, the Dharma is the activity, and the Sangha is the forum for practice.

[07:09]

The environment of practice is the Sangha. The practice itself is the Dharma, and you are the Buddha. So those three are, those are the three legs of practice. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. You are, you know, we're all Buddha, right? So you can say Shakyamuni Buddha or whatever, but right now, this is the Buddha. not the Buddha of memory, or recollection, but the Buddha of now. So find your Buddha. Find your Buddha nature through practicing the Dharma with the Sangha. Then there are the three pure precepts. Don't do evil, practice what is really good, and devote your life to the salvation of humanity.

[08:14]

And then there are the 10 prohibitory precepts. I'd rather call them the 10 clear mind precepts, because yes, they're don't do this, but do that. So I modified our 10 precepts to not just don't do this, but refrain from this and do this, so that it's a balanced, What was the rest of your question? Well, if we have the precepts, the sixteen precepts, do they come out of the Eightfold Path? Well, Eightfold Path, yeah, precepts come out of the Eightfold Path. If you study the Eightfold Path, you'll see that the precepts are all there. If you study the Ten Paramitas, you'll see that the precepts are all there.

[09:14]

Whatever you study in Buddhism, you'll see the precepts are all there. If you go into the library, you're overwhelmed by just a mass of Buddhist literature talking about Buddhism. And you can pick it up anywhere. Just open the book, any book, and start reading, and it's all right there. So you don't need much, really. But it's all interesting, and it's all different views, different ways of looking at the Dharma. But if you just have one text, and you just study that one text, that's all you really need. My room is full of books. I have all these wonderful, but I only really only study about two or three of them thoroughly, because I always go back to the same one. Well, my favorite titles, I guess, are Suzuki Roshi's books.

[10:19]

Those are my basic texts that I always go back to. And then there's Cultivating the Empty Field. and the platform sutra. Even though the platform sutra is in many ways kind of spurious, the heart of the platform sutra is really right there. And I always go back to that, and I always refer to it all the time. Sutras... And of course, I go back to Dogen, you know, the Shobo Ginzo and things like that. But, you know, in the East, where the sutras come from, most people don't read the sutras, they read the commentaries, because the commentaries explain the sutras, or unfold the meaning of the sutras.

[11:25]

So when we read Suzuki Roshi, or, you know, any of these other people's commentaries, they're all commentaries on the sutras. Even though it doesn't say, well, in this sutra it says blah, blah, blah, what they're saying is an exposition of the sutras. So if I study Suzuki Roshi and I start reading the sutras, I say, oh, I see where all that is. There's nothing there that's not in the sutras. but it's a way of making the sutras available because sutras are hard to translate and sometimes they're very repetitious. A lot of the time the sutras are repetitious because they're meant to be chanted. And so when you chant the sutras over and over again, or when you sing, you sing the verses over and over again, but we're not into that.

[12:32]

So it makes it more, you can, someone said, I gave a talk last week on a koan, And someone said, well, you could have just said that in a very simple way. Why do they have to go through all the koan stuff and all the commentary and all this? But yes, it could be said in that way, in a simple way. But by going through the process, it creates something deeper than just saying something. And so, that's my argument.

[14:18]

What's the argument? The argument is, well, we are connected, so which is it? Are we separate or are we connected? Yes. And if we feel lonely or alone, how do we pull, how do we Independent and independent. One and two, and not one, not two. These are all questions that have been dealt with over and over and over again. Not one, not two. Alone is a feeling. Actually, we're not alone, but the feeling of being alone is what we have. So when the feeling of being alone transforms into not being alone, then you're not alone.

[15:25]

But when you have the feeling of being alone, then you're alone. It's simply how you feel, because we are connected. I mean, we're more than connected. Alone, of course, has a double meaning. Basically, it means at one with. But we always think of it in the other meaning, which is separate from. Isn't that interesting? This one word has those two meanings, opposite meanings, seemingly opposite meanings. So we are at one with, we are alone, there's nothing left out. So there's only one. But singular, also the feeling of singularity means separate from. So are we, what does that mean to be alone?

[16:29]

It's a feeling. We can feel separate or we can feel included. It's just a feeling and it's up to us. That's the dharma we have to investigate. And it's really at the crux of practice. It's right at the crux of practice. So because we're independent, we can feel alone. but the independent is only an observation. It's true that we are independent, but we're independently dependent. We're totally dependent at the same time that we're independent. There's nothing that... Who is it that's independent? We have...

[17:32]

We're dependent on breathing. We're dependent on the blood running through our veins. We're dependent on eating the world, devouring the world. We're dependent on so much, we're totally dependent. And anybody who thinks they're not dependent is not observing correctly. We're like earthworms eating our way through the earth and leaving a trail. But at the same time, each one of us is independent. And Suzuki Roshi coined that term, used that term, he said, independency, not quite independent, not quite dependent, somewhere in between dependent and independent, independency. And I said, there's no such word as independency, is there? And he said, there is now. Or something like that. So it's really how we feel.

[18:38]

People say, nobody loves me. Well, of course, that's because you don't love anybody else. Really. And people, well, yes, I do. But you don't. Because if you did, people would love you. We expect something, we want something, but we're not afraid to give. And if we do give, then we want something. That's where you get caught. As soon as you want something, then you feel that you're owed something. And when you feel that you're owed something, nobody loves me. Yes.

[19:39]

In his poem, I can't recite the whole poem. It's my favorite poem from the Platron Sutra. It's a gatha. He says, if you follow the meaning of this gatha, understand the meaning of this gatha, you will, you know. So he said, and I, manipulated the translation, according to my own understanding, but in the beginning of the poem he says, one who is a master of the dharma, or a teacher of the dharma, is like the sun in the empty sky, reflecting, or, illuminating in all directions without concern or without self-concern.

[20:48]

Simply, you know, I remember Hoitsu one time said that if a monk or a priest should be like a glass, a round glass with only one side, no corners, no you know, simply reflecting in all directions without any hindrances. And then he goes on to say that the biggest hindrance is fault finding. He said, when we find fault with others, we ourselves are in the wrong. And that's the most difficult thing for us to chew on, because we're always finding fault. But I think what he means when he says fault find, not finding fault, he means the habit of fault finding.

[21:56]

We have to recognize fault. Fault means a place where there's nowhere to stand, right? That San Andreas fault. Not their fault, but it's a discrepancy, it's something that's not right. So we're recognizing faults all the time, but that's different than fault finding, the habit of fault finding, because it's easy for us to get into this habit of, because there's some fault in ourself, that we don't like to accept. We project the idea of finding that fault outside of ourself. So we're always looking for something to find fault with. So we have to be very careful.

[22:59]

So he sees this as is one of the most difficult and beneficial practices to be careful about our critical nature. Finding fault and criticizing and putting people down You know, it's easy to raise ourself up by putting people down. If you want to be higher and you can't get higher, you can do that by lowering everything else. There's a precept about that. I think it's the seventh precept or eighth precept. Don't raise yourself and lower others. Don't put others down and raise yourself up.

[24:05]

So that's something from the Platform Sutra. If you find this critical nature arising frequently, what would you recommend? I would recommend, well, if you recognize it, that's the first thing. And then what you do with it is up to you. But am I simply, is this simply a habit? Or is there some real merit to this? Or what else could I do besides find fault? Maybe I could help somebody. Maybe I could find a way to help somebody rather than just finding fault with them. You're just complaining, complaining. Complaining has its place.

[25:08]

But when you're always complaining, there's got to be something off. There's somebody's hand, but I don't see their face. Oh, hi. Hello. I've come to learn that the stance of criticism creates a tone or an attitude of separation. Yes. Oh, absolutely. Thank you for that, yeah. That's right. So how can I find my alliance with whatever, rather than my oneness with, instead of my separation? Sometimes a separation is necessary. That's also necessary. But conciliation, I think, is important. More important, yeah.

[26:11]

But when you're finding faults, from so-and-so's behavior when I was born. But you don't need to go back and tell so-and-so about it. You can think about it on your own, understand what the implications are for you, and lead with deep. Yeah. Well, I think that's right. You don't necessarily need to do all those things that you mentioned. You know, because not knowing what to do is important.

[27:21]

When I say not knowing what to do is like not having a formula, not having an answer, but having to struggle with how to do something. That's practice. If you just have an answer, you know, that's why in the precepts, Suzuki Roshi would say, if you just follow the precepts literally, that's heresy. And I thought, wow, that's an extreme statement. If you just follow the precepts literally, that's actually heresy. It's like, because you're following a formula. Precepts are not a formula, real precepts. Real precepts are, guidelines for helping you figure out what you're doing. And each situation calls for its own response. And to struggle with how to respond, to struggle with how to deal with these things when they come up, that's practice.

[28:33]

Because it's right there. It's like reaching for your pillow in the night In the nighttime, you're searching around and back for your pillow, and that's real practice. It's like, I don't know where it is, and it's dark, and I'm looking for it. So, that kind of activity puts you right in the moment. Your whole body and mind is right there, searching, instead of just part of you knowing something. That's why he also says, in the expert's mind, in the beginner's mind, it's not knowing. But in the expert's mind, the possibilities are limited in the expert's mind, but in the beginner's mind, all the possibilities are there.

[29:44]

That's the root of the practice. That's why we say, sometimes, not knowing is the highest. You know, everyday life, when one isn't maybe practicing, we say, youth is wasted on the young. Youth is wasted on the young, you know that. Youth is wasted on the young. But beginner's mind is not wasted on the beginner. Right. No, it's not wasted. When you're a beginner, you're learning already about beginner's mind and learning to appreciate being in that state. Yeah. That's why you start depending on your intuition and openness, and you're not filled with a lot of stuff.

[30:53]

So you're ready to respond without knowing. Kyoto, where we can renso in, and then Koyosan, which is the home of Shinjuku. Just really, true.

[31:58]

Just stay open and keep your eyes open and just enjoy everything you're doing. It's quite enjoyable. And then you'll have little problems, you know, and you can enjoy those too. And you'll have a railway pass and you get on the Shinkansen and roar at 100 miles, 200 miles an hour from Rensselaer to Kyoto. All those places are really interesting. Everything will be interesting. There will be nothing that is not interesting. And Japanese people are very nice. I mean, they're really helpful. Is there anything we should take away from all this? No. Don't take what's not given. Yeah, everything is important. Everything that we've been talking about, I think, is important. And you've been studying it for years, so you already know all that.

[33:00]

Just be yourself. I think that's the whole key, you know, just travel and enjoy it and be yourself. People will respond to you and you'll respond to them and you'll think, well, I don't know the language, you know, and then you say one or two words and pretty soon you have communication. It's very interesting. You don't have to know a lot of the language. You know a few words, you know, and then you have your little booklet, you know, and then they'll teach you what you don't know, and then you won't remember, and then... But in some ways Japan's like kind of a playground or something. People are very accommodating. You know, it's interesting how if you, and people you don't even know so well, but they'll go out of their way, they'll take a day off of their work to show you around someplace, you know?

[34:04]

And you wonder, how can they do that? But they do. They're very concerned. They think in many ways, Japanese people think very deeply about They're very concerned about people, each other. There are all these cases of people leaving their wallet someplace and someone running a mile to catch them up with them or sending it to them in the mail. Everything's intact. In Japan, everybody carries cash. I remember when I first went to Japan, I couldn't cash a traveler's check. We went to the bank. in the bank and nobody knew what to do with it. And they kept us there for about 45 minutes or an hour, you know, talking to each other and scratching their heads. But they probably know about that now, you know, or in the big city. But it's pretty interesting. Everybody carries cash.

[35:05]

You don't feel like you're getting robbed, you know. So there's a whole, really a nice feeling thing in Japan. You're not looking over your shoulder. Yeah. You know the word inscrutable? What?

[36:07]

Inscrutable. Inscrutable. Inscrutable? Inscrutable. Yes. Inscrutable. You can't scrutinize it. You can't scrutinize it. It's just, just accept it. And, you know, Salome and her dance with the seven veils, betrayal. Yeah, so, you know, there's a surface, and then there's another surface, and another, until you're finally, you know, when Japanese businessmen used to meet American businessmen, nothing ever happened when they'd meet. And the Americans say, well, we're not making progress. But the first meeting is just, how are you? Who are you? And then the second meeting is, have a cup of tea, little by little, you know.

[37:10]

But, yes. Well, just because that inscrutable word has been associated with stereotypes and silly projections on Orientals, I'd like to say that we are equally inscrutable. We are. And that we can think about the question Paul raised just as common-sensical ways that we think of our own complexities. Yes, that's very important. To us, there's that inscrutability. To them, we are somewhat inscrutable. Yeah. Could you say something about mental illness and Buddhism? Yes. We're all crazy. And the more I practice Buddhism, the more I see that. That we're all crazy. But what do you mean exactly?

[38:16]

Well, some people are mentally so disabled that practice is not available to them. It's some of the most prescient thing in life. It's not... Well, I don't... There's... practice applications, they're practice applications, they're practice forms, right? But when somebody's, you know, in a place where they cannot practice those forms, right? I mean, sometimes people come here, they're crazy, and so you don't even want them around because they draw so much attention. And you can't give people that much, everybody can't give people that much attention forever, right? You have to go about your business. So we ask people to go see a therapist, or if they're behaving badly, go see a therapist first, and then when you get a handle on yourself, we'll see if you can come back.

[39:18]

So there are various degrees of what you mean by crazy. Right, so there's craziness, which is a funny word, you know, covers a lot of territory, but we use it because you used it. Mental illness, I'm sorry, I use the word crazy. Mental illness. I saw a young man yesterday who had adolescent schizophrenia. He's now 30 and he's been caught endlessly. That's right. There's no way out of it, it seems. That's right. So, we don't sponsor hospitals. Buddhism in America is not big, is not established enough to have mental hospitals. or that kind of thing. So there's a certain cutoff point where people are available to do this style of practice, and then they have to seek out some other style of practice that is more suitable, if they want to.

[40:36]

But some people can't do this style of practice. because of their mental illness, right? Disability. So, but it's possible, you know, to, if somebody really wants to do the practice, that there's a borderline where it's, it's not a clear cut line, right? And you just do what you can. But what we call practice has a certain form and shape, but practice also really has to do with how you respond to somebody. And it has nothing to do with zazen or the formality of practice. It has to do with how you respond to somebody. And we can all do that.

[41:40]

And the real practice question is when you meet somebody that has mental illness, how do you respond to them as your practice? And if you respond to them as your practice, then they'll understand what practice is without knowing that, right? They don't have to know that. That's like what you're doing in your daily life when you go to work or go to school or whatever is you're responding to your people through how you understand practice. That's all you can do. And then, if they respond to you, then there's some practice connection. That's what I would say. Yeah, I think that's right, yeah.

[43:03]

Meaning? well. say that Buddhism doesn't deal with it at all.

[44:45]

It may be that Buddhism here hasn't quite integrated it. But on a traditional level, when you talk about traditional cultures, traditional cultures are always dealing with it. There are actually well-recognized people who have learned both psychology and psychotherapy and Buddhism. Yeah, that's right. Little by little. That happens. My door is saying it's time to stop.

[45:33]

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